


Splinter Horizon

by Phrenotobe_Archive



Category: Homestuck, Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/F, Organic Robotics, bioengineering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 19:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2399354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phrenotobe_Archive/pseuds/Phrenotobe_Archive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The screen lights up with a video message, Stacker’s familiar buzz-cut up to the angles of his horns appearing in short order. His dark blue uniform piping buzzes angrily against the bright red of his broad chest. </p><p>“Mako,” he says, removing the hat off his horns as a gesture of respect, “I’m sorry that I have not been in greater contact with you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gendersquare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gendersquare/gifts).



> This fic contains mild descriptions of Kaiju insides and troll bio-engineering.  
> It is also a prompt that has got to be in the top ten of the most self indulgent things I've ever done.

Mako wakes up to the sound of a call signal tone in the hazy twilight of a cold sea evening, blackout tint on the outer shutters doing a valuable service with an LCD light over it spelling out the time: Too damn early. It’s been enough hours to get some sleep, but not enough to really make getting up an enticing option. 

The standard digs of a career officer of the alternian ground fleet aren’t very good-looking even for a highblood - they never are, as the best suites get reserved for spacefaring navy. The room is grey, mostly, save for the beetle-shell purple storage cubes full of noodle nodules and the refrigeration unit chock full of acrid fruit juices for a quick boost of energy.  
There isn’t an alarm ringing yet, but high psionic pressure once again this week precipitates the beginning of a headache around Mako’s eyes. The lowbloods are building another Jaeger down in the mech pits, and it’ll be a free-for-all between the matched pairs to see who gets it.

Mako prods at the music grub wriggling ineffectually skywards on the shade of her lamp, and it falls to the nightstand as only a grub can do - slowly at first, and then dropping like a ripe fruit when it tips past the pull of sticky feet. It lands with a jelly bounce and a quiet sticky slap. Unharmed, it curls up around her finger when she nudges it again, the grub too low on energy to plug into anything. Shaking out a few drops of nutrient into a feeding dish and leaving it to recharge, she swings her legs out of bed and takes a moment to breathe. 

On her nightstand sit two short swords, about a foot in length. She fits them to her belt as a part of her morning wake-up ritual and goes to the mirror to apply makeup to her face. Blessed with impressively large yellow eyes and a pair of horns that take their mostly symmetrical kabuto-beetle curve just behind her forehead, Mako Mori is a dapper figure. Not yet mature enough for her caste to achieve adult molt, she’s still head and shoulders taller than her peers. 

There are not many indigo trolls on the planet left. Kaiju evacuation procedures have taken care of most non-essential highbloods, and Mako’s mechanical expertise ensures her place in the mechaniterror corps if she holds the line and protects the homeworld, so her worries about ascension day remain at a manageable prickle at the back of her neck. 

It’s the sixth year of the Kaiju war on Alternia, and while most of the old highbloods out in space were willing to sit it out, the lowbloods have definitely started to take measures to protect themselves. It’s better than slowly dying of toxic Kaiju blue. The pollution on the coast is starting to affect the newer generation who live on the shores, too - and in the deeper seas of the cradle of Alternian trollkind.  
Despite most seadwellers being smart enough to avoid Kaiju attacks, it is what finally brings the slow moving fleet admirals around on the issue. 

Back at HQ, Mako takes the lift down to the control center with clipboard in hand, ignoring the rising thud of her heartbeat behind the back of her eyes. Aradia, who is on communications because people won’t let her into the ring to fight fair and square, gives mako a wink as she enters on the next floor. She folds her hands behind her back and patiently waits until her stop.  
“Terezi was calling you,” she chirps as she goes.  
Mako nods, checking the live updates on her organizer-schedule tablet.

Out of the elevator and into the main computer bank of the Jaeger control center. The entire operation is a miracle in itself. Trolls across eight castes and several more continents have contributed their expertise to draw together a system capable of long range communication - no small feat when the first instinct of every troll is to stubbornly hold their ground and make an offensive gesture to any invading force. 

Considering the gesture of the test kit visible from the launch bay windows, not a lot has changed since the ocean floor developed a monster-spewing crack. 

There are a multitude of trolls even at this early hour. Scrawny legs stick out from underneath a console, occasionally coming out with a little psionic burst as they reach for a tool or drag an unwilling component out of nutrient fluid to fit underneath the desk. To Mako’s left, a cluster of trolls with midblood-coloured piping on their uniforms use the communication systems to interact with the different stations arranged at regular intervals along the coast. On the right, a blueblood with a pompadour, bagel in mouth, squints at a radar and offers their moirail the other cup of coffee in their hand. 

“Launch module two activate, move your shit all the way to the left for entry and reloading and monitor the adrenaline levels under the carapace, is that perfectly clear?”  
Karkat is on the main switchboard, his rounded shoulders barely straightened by the starchy shoulderboards on his cherry-red uniform. He insists on wearing the cap even when everybody else has taken it off and continues to play irate tic-tac-toe with the Jaegers as they come in and dock.  
“Do I need to come down there and spank a rousing tattoo into your aural canals with a bowl-ended mastication device or are you able to carry out my simple request?”

“Excuse me,” Mako says quietly, looking around for the source of her summons.  
Karkat doesn’t hear her, or at least ignores her, but Terezi removes her headset and turns to stand. Kanaya, sitting just on her right, gives the both of them a wary glance and goes back to hunting and pecking out a message with her pointer fingers. 

“I was hoping you’d arrive soon, things are quite busy. Though, I suppose they always will be.” Terezi says warmly. She reaches to put a cup of coffee into Mako’s empty hand, and Mako tucks her fingers into the pocket of her overalls neatly, avoiding it.  
“What is the problem?” she asks, “It’s almost morning.”  
Terezi gestures toward the communication desk.  
“Suit yourself,” she says, “There is an off-world transmission for you,” she says, “Not currently live, but I should think that the sender should be close by. I thought you’d want to take a look?”  
Terezi offers her a headset, turning away for a moment as Mako takes it to pull up the communication cluster on-screen.  
“Parts of the message were above your clearance, so I couldn’t personally arrange for it to be put directly into your inbox. I felt that it was reasonable to notify you as soon as it appeared.” 

Putting the headset on, Mako takes Terezi’s seat, and then takes another moment to adjust the fit of her work suit. The screen lights up with a video message, Stacker’s familiar buzz-cut up to the angles of his horns appearing in short order. His dark blue uniform piping buzzes angrily against the bright red of his broad chest. 

“Mako,” he says, removing the hat off his horns as a gesture of respect, “I’m sorry that I have not been in greater contact with you.”  
He raises schematics to the viewport, too fast to be seen before they’re tucked away.  
“I’m sending over a schematic for some experimental drift technology. Robotics is your area, and a biotic interface allows for too much depth.”  
Mako nods her understanding, though the recording barely pauses.  
“Your shatterdome needs to retrieve a Kaiju brain,” he says, “As complete as you possibly can. You understand that. Ensure your rangers do too. Savagery will not aid this project.”  
Mako reaches into her pocket to pull out her notebook, taking down his words.  
“Take the plans. Adjust them as you see fit and collect a team you can depend on that covers the requirements as laid down in the document. The empire depends on you.”  
He takes a spare moment.  
“Mako,” he says again, his official tone a little more quiet.  
“I trust you not to fail.”  
The transmission goes blank. 

“Was that some good news in this ongoing strife?” Terezi says, cocking a hip as she grins.  
“I need access to the machine shop,” Mako says, slipping the headset off and dropping it into Terezi’s waiting hands, “Full access, if possible.”


	2. Chapter 2

The machine shop is located underneath the bays, dark and warmed by the actions of Jaegers above. Clusters of trolls with simple prosthetics probably created in-house work on separate projects, illuminated by hologram blue screens and the sparks created by their tools. A few look custom enough to be personal strife specibi. 

Picking past the biowire tanks, Mako finds the spare half of a bench to sit at, and looks at the schematics. There aren’t many parts that will need special treatment - the drift harnesses would work in metal with similar resistances, and it’s not overly stressful to put the pieces together. Willing hands appear like magic on all sides as soon as she uploads the images to the holographic platform, eager for a new project to get into. 

With reasonable amounts of delegation, a workstation grows and grows through the pale hours of the day into the blazing daylight, a Kaiju alarm ringing over the sounds of the power tools at work. Come nightfall, four hours of sleep and a minor mishap, everything is on schedule. Above, another event rings in, trying to get ahead of the construction bots reprogramed to build walls. 

Up on deck in the control room again and Aradia greets Mako with a wink and some clicky fingers. It is one of the least sexy things that has ever been done, but is reassuring all the same.   
“Hey,” she says, “Do you need sleep? Go sleep.”  
Mako casts her gaze aside to the console behind her.  
“I need your help,” she says, giving Aradia a speculative glance. Aradia perks up, invested in the delicious delicacy of blunt-force trolling.   
“Your back always hurts,” Aradia says, “If you keep doing daylight work you know that’ll happen.”  
Mako’s eyebrows tip into a delicate little frown, and she casts off Aradia’s light jab with a shrug.   
“I meant the project,” she says, “It needs a psionic.”  
“Oh, well,” Aradia says, dimples appearing in her cheeks as her lip curls up into a wicked smile, “Sounds like fun!”

They take the elevator back down to the construction levels, Aradia inching over to Mako incrementally as the icons for each floor chime.  
“I don’t come down here often,” she says, “They won’t let me.”   
Mako nods, and averts her eyes politely to the wall.  
“I stay in the construction area,” she says, tucking herself in neatly. The elevator calls the next stop.

In Construction, Jaegers take form. The carapaces, several hundred feet in length, are encouraged to grow over a frame made of mash-up bones, biotech and parts made suitable for drive suit environments. It’s a cool system, if a little overwhelming on the senses. A technician comes over, recognizing them both from Mako’s blunt communiques, and ushers them toward the trolls working on the latest Kaiju remains, retrieved and brought ashore.

Above them, pair of mighty legs extend up into the darkness of the roof, the armored foot replete with a rainbow sheen. A torso, half-covered with plates arranged in overlapping layers, awaits the drip-dry of the next piece to finish, held up by three psionics to avoid warping for the duration.  
“If it wasn’t for the damage to the homeworld,” the technician says, with a self-satisfied preen, “We’d probably make it an industry.”  
Mako frowns at that, and Aradia’s hand comes around to make a daring grab for Mako’s arm.  
“Well I’m more interested in full skeletons,” she says cheerfully, “But if you have a brain or two, we’ll be on our way.”   
She tucks her fingers into the clothed crease of Mako’s elbow, and Mako gives Aradia a wary glance, unsure of whether to detach herself or not.   
Aradia grins.


	3. Chapter 3

The brain of the Kaiju is found neatly organized away as per somebody’s strict methodology of cataloguing things, in a mossy-looking suspension of ammonia held behind quick dry transparent resin. Several free-hanging organic cords, nerve endings, most likely, undulate gently in the fluid. Every so often one of them lifts purposefully to knock against the inside of the tank. 

Aradia darts over immediately, slapping the palm of her hand to the resin for a ghoulish high-five.  
“So this is what we’re using, is it?” she says, lively with interest, her psionics buzzing enough to make Mako’s hair lift lightly with static, “This is very exciting.” 

“Yes,” Mako says, “We’re going to drift with it.”  
Aradia turns with surprise, like somebody has wrapped up the biggest, spookiest present she’d ever yearned for, and delivered it right to her hive door.  
“If you want to,” Mako adds.

Aradia positively beams at Mako, wrapping her up in a hug. Mako tolerates it, which is to say she enjoys the feeling, but feels the execution could be better. What she can’t say is that she didn’t ask for such a thing with the style of her introduction to the plan, however.  
“Wow!” Aradia says, and pauses a moment to let the word sink in to their aural sponges.  
“Wow,” she says again, “That sounds very dangerous! Are you sure about this?”  
“Yes,” Mako says.  
“So,” she adds, gently peeling away, “How long will you need to prepare?”  
“I’m pretty sure I am always ready to go,” Aradia says, “But if you need more time, I am sure I will find a way to wait.”

 

\----

Waiting, as it turns out, only means taking the service lift back up with a troll-sized lump of blue-tinted brain matter. They roll it through the machine shop to sit next to the drift tech, at which point they come across Terezi, tapping stick against the side of her foot. 

“Being the meddling presence between a bad idea and two particular pan-fried persons whom I will not currently name,” she says, tilting an eyebrow at them both, “is not what I thought I would do tonight.”  
Kanaya, behind Terezi, gives Mako and Aradia a worried stare, rather like she had thought that her conduct up to the point was perfectly reasonable, but then had started to have second thoughts about telling somebody the full details of a classified document that had been left open incidentally, and happened to be very readable.  
“It would bother me a lot if this untested experiment went wrong,” Kanaya says guiltily, her hands curling and uncurling into anxious fists, “Please let us help.”  
“I would not call it untested,” Mako objects, “Pentecost believes I am strong enough.”  
“Really Mako,” Terezi says, “You know I respect your need to be independant of your lusus replacement figure, but are you sure that this is actually a good decision?”  
Mako’s hands lightly place on the hilt of her strife daggers, ready on either hip.  
“Yes,” she says, tipping up her chin as a dare, baring the pale flesh of her throat.  
Terezi’s lip curls at the sight, her dagger mouth ready.

Kanaya takes a brave step between the two, raising her hands with the threat of a pap in the spread of her fingers.  
“While this is an interesting turn of events,” she says, “This will not bring about the kind of resolution we are hoping to find. Perhaps we could take a quiet moment of lucid debate.”  
Aradia snickers into her hands.  
“Okay, really, this is hilarious,” she says, hopping lightly onto the flat casing of the drifting construct and kicking her legs against the the metal with a repeating thud, “But Kanaya is right, we’re not actually doing anything.”  
She fiddles with the cranial contact net, flipping it around to sit upside down in her lap.  
“If I die, then at least it was really cool and you all should throw an amazing party! But if I don’t, then I can do something really great. After all, there’s only so much time before everything is all just a bunch of grey goo.”  
She waggles her eyebrows at Terezi.  
“Are you going to help or not?”

The answer is an unambiguous yes.  
Most of the equipment is already laid out, and it just takes a little more time to put probe to brain and neural net over horns, the careful patter of green-grey hands on rustblood burning-warm skin and Mako’s highblood chill. Terezi is still on edge from before, rougher than she needs to be.  
“Your ability to be stubborn is only matched by your need to be right,” she grumbles quietly as she fits Mako up, stepping back to let Kanaya activate the drift sequence.  
“I know,” Mako says, closing her eyes and waiting for the surge.


	4. Chapter 4

Hues of blue spark into the dark behind Mako’s eyes. She finds notes of songs, rhymes and lusus chirps, her own memories of home mixed with that of a curl-horned wiggler digging into dirt, knowing every inch of a four-room house. The overbearing presence of the Kaiju thought snaps into their consciousness as a dark biting sliver of thought, filtered moments of aggression too fragmented to hold onto thrown up against production-line clusters of identical beings and the helpless suspension of null gravity. Just before she tips over the edge and falls into the memory, Aradia seems to grasp her and find a level place among the chaos.

Aradia’s hard-headed consciousness pulls together with Mako’s, a pool of quixotic optimisim and stern guts using Mako’s stubborn streak and analytic talent to catch onto the lingering wisps of a shared Kaiju consciousness and throw something into it.

It is too quick to see, and too light to feel before it’s gone. Another follows through, and Mako gets enough of it to note a quiet regret. Two pieces chase forward, then six, a stream of rage and sadness and vengeful intent growing wide into a river and flooding, filling up and shoving down into the gaps. 

The pressure grows, psionic pressure tangible again pushing down as the scathing sea of motes surge in a rude charge into every piece of the kaiju they can find. The Kaiju brain can only repeat itself, staccato splashes of otherworld and the confused chorus of giant creatures, a rising roar of upset feedback and scrambled memory.

The feeling of nulled gravity and lightness continues, a head that feels full but also full of nothing, as images cluster and shove into Mako’s brain and try to find places to nest. Something feels like it’s scratching somewhere, on the outside, and when the sharing stops and the melting edges of three consciousnesses curling around each other begin to unravel, it turns out she was digging into her own skin with her fingerclaws, trying to get the neural net off. 

Aradia’s left hand is grasping Mako’s right.   
There is helping by being there for somebody in need, and there is helping through actions after the event. Kanaya de-captchalogues a slew of medical paraphernalia, her expression almost as wide-eyed as Mako’s own look of off-kilter dizziness. Aradia tips the cranial contact frame off her head with a surprised whoosh of breath, shaking out her remaining confusion and running her hand back through her hair - though any effect on it is hard to notice.

“You look awful,” Kanaya observes, dabbing at a cut over Mako’s eye, “Please don’t do that again.”  
Aradia puffs out her cheeks, her foot hitting the equipment’s metal cover with a harder than usual clang.   
“Well I don’t think we need to,” she says, looking more serious than she’s looked since the start of the Kaiju War, “Just look at that brain! I haunted it so badly I think the Kaiju’s ancestors all felt it.”

In the tank, the chunk of grey matter is pooled at the lower end of the tank, folded in on itself, nerve cords no longer seeking but infrequently pulling into a painful curl as though it has been thoroughly singed on every end.

“You haunted it?” Terezi says, lifting her nose.  
“Every last lowblood that lived too far out,” Aradia says, “Or was in the wrong place.”  
Her heel taps the metal again.  
“It was a real party in there, Mako.”


End file.
